


Stars and Fears

by soottea



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Depression, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Homesickness, Lance's Insecurities, Lance's mom makes a brief appearance, M/M, Mental Breakdown, POV Lance (Voltron), Worried Keith (Voltron), kind of introspective to Lance's thoughts, mentions of blood and injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:03:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9214181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soottea/pseuds/soottea
Summary: A hero. He didn’t feel like a hero.Lance wanted nothing more than to be back on the beach with his family. Not bleeding out, post battle, hoping that someone found him before he died in the wreckage of this backwater alien village that Allura said they just had to save from their local harassers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't 100% fully written a fic in aaages. But a one-shot of pure Lance angst just sort of...happened.
> 
> y'all can hit me up on the tweetonet @sootttea  
> and shoutout to my best bae Syd for editing for me <3

“What do you see out there, my son?” she asked, smoothing down his hair.

“The moon?” He asked, confused. Everyone’s seen the night sky.

“And?”

“…The stars?”

 _“And_?”

“What else…is there?” He grew frustrated by this game she liked playing with him, and it showed as he forced the words out.

“Possibilities, Lance.”

“Possi-posib, what does that mean?”

“It means anything can happen.”

“Anything?”

“Yes. Every adventure, every dream you could have, might just happen up there.”

He grinned at that, jumping down from his mother’s lap and onto the last few steps of their porch. Scooping up a discarded stick and holding it above his head, he pointed to the glittering stars above as he posed with a giddy grin on his face. “I’ll go up there! I’ll…I’ll be a space cop! And save people!”

“Hahaha! Yes, you will, and you’ll be the _bravest_ one out there. I know you will, my darling, I can feel it. You’ll be a hero.”

 

* * *

 

 

A hero. He didn’t feel like a hero.

Not when he was on his back, in the mud, staring up at the dark starry sky that he grew up admiring. It wasn’t the same sky, not really. It was the same choking black that held all of the universe, but the stars were all different.

Lance wanted nothing more than to be back on the beach with his family. Not bleeding out, post battle, hoping that someone found him before he died in the wreckage of this backwater alien village that Allura said they just _had_ to save from their local harassers.

Shiro would give him a hard look and a stern _Lance_ for that. But hey, he’s dying--he’s allowed to be bitter. He couldn’t bear to look at the sky anymore; too many memories with the stars. _“Wish I got shot in the back, with my face in the mud. At least then I would be able to just…sleep or something.”_

Lance exhaled raggedly. Other than the stars, the only other things to look at were the broken shards of rubble around him which were, regrettably, very uninteresting. They were pockmarked with gunfire and painted with the blood of both sides of the fight.

To think he used to believe himself brave. How is it brave when you want to sink into the mud and have a dreamless, endless, sleep?

 _“I should get up,”_ he thought. _“They’ll be disappointed if I don’t.”_ Lance planted his hands in the mud in an attempt to sit up. Pain shot through him and his vision blacked out to pinpoints. He was sure he screamed but all he felt was fire and the sucking wetness of the mud below him. Straining to look down, Lance could see his leg pinned under a piece of rubble. Great. That, on top of the gaping wound in his side, meant he was going nowhere. Thinking on it, Lance hastily tugged his mud covered glove off and reached down. Gentle fingers brushed against the charred fabric and ragged skin of his wound, where blood was still pulsing out with each breath he took. Lance could hear Keith in the back of his mind, telling him he should put pressure on it, but that would hurt. _“Everything hurts,”_ he thought.

Lance rested his palm over it. Maybe it would help even the slightest bit to staunch the bleeding? He just wanted to stop hurting. _“Where are they? Why are they taking so long?”_ Fear and self-loathing were beginning to creep into his thoughts.

 _“Maybe it’s because they realize how_ useless _you are and are better off without you on the team.”_ That couldn’t be true….could it? He was team strategist, except….except far too often his plans were berated and shot down before they could come to fruition. More than once, they were considered impossible before they could even be enacted. Lance could remember it, even if they praised him for his ingenious plans and methods after the fact, every roll of the eyes and exasperated sigh. It was all there, just under the surface. His breath hitched as the dark thoughts swirled faster, keying up his emotions.

Lance covered his eyes with his free hand when he could feel them welling up. _“It’s not true. It’s not true. Hunk’s your best friend in the whole universe…right? Been through everything together, he’s practically your brother, Lance.”_ But, maybe those thoughts were right. As of late, Hunk had spent far more time with Pidge, working on something mechanical that went over Lance’s head because Altean tech was foreign and confusing. Lance could handle an earth machine if he was hard pressed to, but reverse engineering ten thousand year old alien tech was more than he could handle. And maybe that’s why Hunk sought out the company of Pidge, a prodigy, more. _“I’m no good for him. Can’t keep up. If anything I held him back at the Garrison, because I couldn’t cut it as a fighter pilot and Hunk felt bad for me.”_

Pidge was a different story. Lance wasn’t as close to her at the Garrison; she’d wanted it that way, which he understand now, but the distance had never entirely vanished. She was always the first to get annoyed or roll her eyes at him. To Lance, at this moment, it was the easiest to believe Pidge never liked him in the first place.

Allura, Coran, even Shiro, all felt so distant. Like teachers humoring a boisterous, _annoying_ student. _“That’s probably what I am to them. Heh. What’s the saying anyway? Never meet your heroes?”_ Lance let the hand on his face fall to the ground one more, running tracks of mud through the bits of hair that weren’t already coated. The stars still stared down at him, unchanged and unfazed by his existence. _“Guess it was right. It’s as disappointing and depressing as I was warned about.”_ Lance wouldn’t have been surprised if Shiro—the one person he idolized for his entire life, who motivated him to join the Garrison— was disappointed in him. He was always doing something to mess up. Flying his lion into an obstacle, destabilizing Voltron for the sake of showing off, thinking it was a _good idea_ to mouth off quips at people he barely knew. Everything felt like one big mistake and Shiro was another disappointed instructor wishing another Keith existed to take his place.

And Keith. _His_ Keith. His Keith, with those soft violet eyes and that infectiously joyous laugh (whenever it could be coaxed out of him). He was everything good in Lance’s life, everything he wanted to protect out in that choking blackness. But he didn’t need Lance’s protection. Keith was so strong, and capable and wonderful, and…better. Better in every aspect. Effortlessly better looking, better at flying, better at fighting, better at seeing what needed to be done and what was more important. Lance could still feel the jealous anger that had once sat deep in his gut, now quiet, smaller, slowly smothered by love, but it was still there. The many comments of _why can’t you be like Keith?_ , _Keith would never have done this_ , _you’re only here because Keith dropped out_ . They were right. All of those instructors were right. Even the motivational comments of _He just worked harder than you,_ felt like knives in Lance’s gut and a slap in the face of all the hard work he _had_ done. _“He deserves better than me.”_ Even with his soft eyes and raven hair, Lance could also still remember the bitterness that Keith used to greet him with. The low jabs and spiteful comments. _“Did…did he ever love me? Was I just delusionally projecting my own selfish wants and needs on him? Or…or did he pick me because I was the only choice? He only had, what? Five options? Four? Maybe he’d’ve chosen Shiro, or Hunk, but chose me because I was desperate. I was easy.”_

Lance gripped his hand tighter against his eyes as the tears finally spilled over, causing tracks through his dirty cheeks. _“No…no, you’re terrible of thinking this. For putting words into Keith’s mouth like that. How could you? How could you be so selfish and jealous when he’s out there looking…maybe…maybe…”_

_“You’re ungrateful.”_

Lance didn’t care about covering his eyes from the flow of tears that dripped into his ears, or stifle the painful sobs that started deep within his chest and made him grip tighter to the wound that screamed with pain. _Everything_ hurt. And he didn’t deserve anything that he had. _“Don’t find me. Please, don’t find me,”_ he found himself thinking. Hunk deserved a friend who wasn’t bitterly jealous of him. Pidge deserved a life without a distracting annoyance. Shiro, Allura and Coran deserved to not have to deal with a disappointment. And Keith…Keith deserved better. Keith deserved a better life with someone he didn’t have to settle with because he was the only option amongst a small group of people. Lance didn’t care how much the thought of Keith being with someone else made his heart burn and the tears to flow faster, Keith deserved to be with someone better than a washed up selfish, cargo pilot with dreams bigger than he had the ability to fulfill.

He was no hero.

 

* * *

 

Lance couldn’t feel his leg now. He had long since run dry of tears, and with them any hope that his team was coming for him. Any fires that had been burning had long since petered out to thin wisps of smoke, and distant sounds of life and battle had disappeared at some point as well. Lance was happy for the floaty, warm feeling he was now blissfully falling into as he began to surrender himself to his fate. Yet, there was still an edge to it all. An edge of fear that scratched at him like an impatient cat wanting to go outside. That all of this was wrong. That he was wrong to accept what was inevitable. But Lance decided that those were lies and the only truth was to sleep now.

It would make everyone so much happier. Not being a burden upon anyone anymore.

The stars had become a blurry wash of color on black when he decided to open his eyes once more -- for a moment, just a moment, because he was growing far too tired to last much longer. Lance kept trying to look for the stars his mother had pointed out to him and the corresponding images he’d seen in her thick astronomy books. He wanted to see them, one last time, but he decided, _“Maybe….I’ll look for them after I sleep.”_ Lance let his eyes close, finally feeling comfortable. _“Maybe mom will help me look for them. I always…always had trouble finding…find…ing…”_

There was a sound -- out there -- in the oppressive quietness that Lance had grown used to. He lazily opened his eyes, letting his head fall in the direction he supposed it had come from. It seemed far, but familiar, he assumed. Lance was sure if this was hours (or however long it had been) earlier, he would have called out to them. But why waste breath calling out to someone who didn’t deserve another burden on such a terrible day? The voice called out again, closer this time. It sounded like his name. Why would someone look for him?

Once more, they seemed closer still, voice touched with…fear? Panic? He couldn’t tell. One thing he could tell, though, was who the stumbling, desperate figure was that crested the ridge of detritus not far from where he lay.

It was Keith.

Lance had never seen him look so panicked, so on edge. His raven hair was tangled and unkempt from both battle and maybe terrified fingers that had, and still were, occasionally running through it. The violet eyes that soon found his own were not the soft ones he had remembered, but wild and ringed in red. Relief seemed to pass through Keith, if only for a second, before he was practically falling down the ridge as he ran towards Lance.

“Lance!” he yelled. He seemed almost as unsteady as a fawn on ice. His legs skittered through the mud, slipping and pushing himself back into his run with a hand before he could completely fall into the mud. Skidding to a stop beside Lance, dropping to his knees as he did so, Keith hastily shouted, “I found him!” into his helmet he carried before tossing it aside to roll in the mud. “Lance,” Keith said quietly, hands resting on his cheeks and wiping away some of the dried mud on them. “Lance look at me, don’t close your eyes ok?” His voice was ragged and strained from overuse, fear still evident in its shaky tone and the quiver of his hands on his face.

_“You caused this. He’s scared because of you.”_

The choking knot of tears in Lance’s throat threatened to return, and it wasn’t helping that the blurry stars that he had come to know above him, were replaced with worried eyes and loose, tangled hair. One hand moved to his forehead, brushing back his short bangs before staying there with a tense, shaky grip. “Lance, what happened? Where’s your helmet?” Keith asked, frantic eyes looking him over for answers. His hand gently pulled at the one Lance had long since forgotten was over the wound on his side, quickly replacing it with his own. Keith’s hand was also ungloved, and applied much more pressure than Lance’s weakened muscles could have. A quiet “oh, god,” didn’t slip past Lance, despite his exhaustion. That hurt, hearing that from him. A pained whine slipped from him; he didn’t want to cry anymore, to hear this hurt, he just wanted to stop. To rest. Keith’s focus was immediately back on him, thumb rubbing his brow. “Hey, hey, none of that ok? I’m here now and help is coming. You have to stay awake, though. So…so, tell me what happened, ok?”

Lance didn’t want to - instead, he just shook his head. _“He shouldn’t even be here. Should just leave me. I don’t deserve to be saved.”_

Keith seemed confused. “No? No, why not, Lance?”

“’s my fault.” His voice was small and hoarse from disuse.

“No it’s not. Getting shot isn’t your fault, Lance, it—“

“No. ’s my fault you’re sad. That…that evr’yone is always…always disappointed with me.” He weakly pushed at Keith’s hand on his side. “’s why you should leave me here.”

It was Keith’s turn to shake his head. “I’m not leaving you, ok? I just found you after I thought…I thought I’d find you dead. Every corner I thought, ’There he’ll be, the love of my life, dead in the mud.’ So no, I’m not leaving you here, Lance.”

It couldn’t be true, what he said. It was all a painful lie to comfort a dying coward. Lance continued to push on Keith’s hand. “No…no, I hold you back. I’m..’m no good for you. You d…deserve ’t not have ’t settle for me, ‘cause I’m th only option.” He stopped pushing against Keith’s unmoving wrist, deciding instead to grip it with whatever strength he had left, and murmured, “because I was desperate.”

Keith’s face fell in pain and his hands, the ones so much better than him at everything but were now so unsure, came to rest on his cheeks again. One left a new warmth on his skin -- blood probably, his blood -- before Keith’s forehead came to rest against his own. “I’m sorry,” was all he said before standing. His white paladin armor, though marred with dirt before, was darkened to almost black in parts and more red in places than it usually was. At least for once, Lance thought, Keith was listening. Letting go of him and finding someone better. Stepping around to Lance’s other side, Keith paused and Lance let his eyes fall closed once more.

He thought that maybe, maybe dying here at least with Keith in the vicinity, might not be that bad. That was, until he felt something solid and rather _bladelike_ slam into the mud between Lance and the debris pinning his leg. “Keith…What are you doing?!”

“I’m sorry…that you feel like this, Lance.” Keith managed out between straining grunts to leverage the heavy stone off of Lance’s body. “I’m sorry…if I _made_ you feel like this. Like… You might be less or, not enough. Because you are to me, always have been.” Lance couldn’t take that, couldn’t take that love and let himself believe it. Both his grimy hands went to cover his face, to hide the only way he could as fresh tears spilled new tracks down his face. It scared him, really, to have all of this but also to have confirmation that his thoughts were _wrong_ and to have someone who was strong enough to literally want to lift boulders off of him telling him that he wasn’t right. “And I’m _not_ going to let you let yourself die in the mud on this shitty planet. If only this _fucking rock would move_!” Lance could hear the dull impact as Keith punched the rock in frustration, wanting to do everything but having no ability to. He only noticed that Keith had moved again when he was being gently propped up and held.

Lance was sure that every survival book and Garrison teacher would be screaming at them both for moving an injured person with, probably, some serious blood loss; but he didn’t care. Neither of them did. _“Fuck it,”_ Lance thought. _“If I’m dying on this backwater mud pit of a planet I damn well don’t want to be alone.”_ He let himself uncurl, gripping onto anything he could, and soaked up the warmth that always seemed to radiate off the red paladin.

“Please don’t leave…” The words left him before he could stop it.

_“I don’t want to die on this planet alone.”_

More noise Lance couldn’t pinpoint could be heard somewhere overhead, which drowned out any response Keith made to his request (only knowing he spoke by the vibrations through his chest) until a yellow lion landed far in his field of view, the others not far behind.

_“I don’t want to die alone.”_

He was scared now. More than before. The stakes seemed more real now than they had before during the unknown amount of time he’d laid there for. He had things to lose now, and people he would disappoint if he kicked it without them having a say. He could see Hunk cresting the ridge where he first saw Keith, Pidge probably not far behind while the Black Lion attempted to herd the Red and his beloved Blue. The negative clawing still scratched at him, egging him on to believe that this was all his fault and they were all annoyed and would hate Lance for it. Yet they all still came for him, Keith’s arms tightening around him, and he didn’t understand as he watched and his weary eyes fell closed against the rise and fall of Keith’s chest. His Keith.

Lance didn’t hear Keith telling him to stay awake. He wasn’t aware of Hunk’s arrival, the quick discussion with Keith, or the first aid that was performed on him. Wasn’t conscious to see Pidge carefully piloting Green to take the shard of fallen rubble in its metallic maw and lift it off and away. And certainly wasn’t fully conscious to realize that Keith wouldn’t let him go and insisted he take him to the castle in Red (because she was faster, he had argued). There was really only one thing repeating like an echo and piercing the darkness of his mind like the stars he so fondly looked up to:

_“I don’t want to die.”_

 

* * *

 

It was only a moment to him. A tiny moment between looking at the stars, contemplating his existence, and the feeling of falling like one, cold but whole. Alive. Lance was sure of that when his face hit something soft and warm, and everything was way. Too. Bright. Bright like sunlight that streamed through his window in the morning back home. Maybe he _was_ dead and that annoying yet comforting squishing feeling around his arms and chest was one of his siblings being a pest.

No.

Nope.

Definitely not. He was alive because everything was still sore (if healed), his siblings would not have been that gentle and forgiving, that chill was the cryopod he totally just fell out of and, the squish around his chest was definitely Hunk when it was paired with the elated sobs and babbling above him.

“Oww,” was all he could eek out under Hunk’s friendly, if overeager, arms.

Hunk lifted him up one last time before gently setting him down. “I’m sorry, dude, I just,” he sniffed back more tears, “I was so worried about you, man.” He stepped back a bit, briefly leaving his hands on Lance’s shoulders as he steadied himself on sleepy legs.

Lance laughed a bit, and it sounded a little hollow, even to himself. “Can’t get rid of me that easily, right?” he said as he looked up to the rest of the room. They were all there, mostly, with soft, relieved, eyes and small smiles.

Pidge was messing with something she’d sigh about (before launching into a long winded explanation) if he asked what it was. “Who else would I ramble to about projects without _unnecessary comments_ , if you were gone,” she said pointedly towards Hunk, who sheepishly rubbed the back of his head before a quick ‘sorry’ to her. It all felt so….domestic. So… _okay_. Why weren’t they disappointed? Or annoyed? They should be. His negligence on the battlefield could have cost the mission, yet they were all ok about it? Hunk was concerned, Pidge seemed nonchalant, if relieved, Shiro—leaning against an inactive pod—looked to be perfectly at ease while talking to Coran and Allura who were looking over some sort of Altean gibberish on a data pad.

He wasn’t dreaming, that much Lance was sure of, but everything felt off, like a picture hung a little crooked. It only added to the weirdness that the only other person in the castle, Keith, was missing.

“Where’s Keith?” he asked, garnering the attention of the others,  before a heavy weight leaned into his back and hands tightly gripped the front of his shirt. Keith’s hands, he noticed as he looked down, were the ones clutching at the fabric.

“I thought you were going to die…” Lance could barely hear the quiet murmurs spoken into his shoulder. The room quieted, though the others busied themselves with things to give the two a semblance of privacy, but Keith continued. “I thought I hadn’t gotten to you in time and that you weren’t going to make it and that it was my fault and everyone would be mad…would be disappointed. And…and…” Lance could hear the small hitches in Keith breath as he spoke, it broke his heart all over again. “And I would hate myself.”

Lance reached up to rest one of his hands on top of Keith’s. “Keith, I—“

“I’d hate myself for not saving you, for having you die with all those…those thoughts.” Lance couldn’t see Keith’s face but the growing warmth dripping onto his shoulder made Keith’s tears obvious.

“Keith…”

“And I was selfish. Selfishly scared that you’d leave me alone out here. That you’d break my heart in a way that I’d blame myself for, in a way that I couldn’t follow you. Even when we had gotten you into the pod we weren’t—I wasn’t—…we weren’t sure if you’d survive.”

“Keith,” Lance said softly, slowly pulling Keith’s hands from the grip they had on him, turning to face the distraught paladin. “How…how long was in in there for?”

Lance hadn’t let go of Keith’s hands and Keith refused to look up, instead solely focusing on their hands. “A week.”

A week. It felt like an eternity out here. Even if Lance was KOed for the entire time, there was probably so much he missed.

“I’m sorry.”

Keith looked up at that. “What? Why?” he managed through hiccoughs and sniffs.

“Because…” Lance started, but all the words that came to mind felt wrong to say. “Because I made you worry about me that week. That you’re upset.”

“What? No! No, Lance. I’m not upset. I’m relieved, I’m fucking ecstatic.” He huffed a small laugh, which was honestly the brightest thing that Lance had ever had the pleasure of hearing. “I might have slept a few too many nights in here and gotten an earful from Shiro about it.”

“Actually,” Hunk interrupted, “Shiro is totally right. You would have giving yourself _nasty_ muscle cramps and—“

“Hunk!!” Pidge punched him in his shoulder with a warning glare.

“Sorry…sorry.”

Lance let himself smile at the antics of his friends. _His_ friends. He had to remember that, to accept this fact. “No one blames you. If anything I’m impressed. Never thought you could singlehandedly go up against the toughest battalion and win,” Keith said, lightly punching Lance’s shoulder. “You were really brave out there, Lance.”

“Heh, bet I did better out there than you. One up on you for once, samurai.”

Keith grinned at that, his eyes still ringed in red and tracks of old tears dried upon his face, but things were starting to seem at least a little more normal. “We’ll see about that, Lance. You still haven’t bested me in hand-to-hand yet. Now come on, I’m tired and you need to change.”

Letting himself be dragged off, Lance could feel it, deep in his chest, something that felt like he was reaching a sense of stability again. It’d be slow, but maybe it was worth it. Seeing his friends, his family, his Keith, happy, certainly helped.

He was no hero.

Not yet, anyway.

But maybe, just maybe, he could allow himself to believe that he had what it took to truly _be_ a hero.

  
  



End file.
